We recently connected with Lisa Oberlander and have shared our conversation below.
Lisa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
My parents allowed me to be myself; they always encouraged my artistic side. Unlike a lot of parents, they never tried to talk me out of going to Art school; in fact they encouraged me to pursue my dreams of becoming a photographer. When I came home from my first year of college and told them, not asked them, that I was going to study photography in London, they were more than supportive.
My father did photography and that is how I got started in it as a child. I guess I wanted to be like him and photography fascinated me. If it wasn’t for my parents’ support and encouragement I would probably have been in a completely different career.
Lisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m an Art and Photography teacher at a middle school in Miami. I worked at a photo lab during college and for a while after graduating with my BFA. One day a customer came into the lab and told me that she just became a teacher and that I should, too. She said that I might teach the next president. As crazy as that sounds, that is how I went into teaching. I went back to school shortly after that and got my Masters of Science in Art Education.
On the side, I am partners with an amazingly talented retired Art teacher named Marilyn Traeger. She came up with the idea of Visually Organizing important information. She gave my friend and I a presentation and I fell in love with the idea, thinking it would be a great way to organize teachers’ lives and paperwork. That’s how we became partners.
What VISUAL Organization does is help you consolidate and share your vital information, ensuring easy access whenever and wherever you need it. On the education side of our company, we help teachers condense the large amounts of paperwork and information into an efficient and manageable system.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is being able to share my creativity with others and being able to be myself.
The most rewarding part of being an Art teacher is watching my students develop their own creativity and becoming artists themselves.
Have you ever had to pivot?
There was a time in my life that all I wanted to do was be a photographer for Rock bands and design album covers. That was my dream job. When I got to college and began to study photography seriously, my eyes were opened to the vast styles of photography that afforded me the opportunity to share my creativity and stories far beyond the idea of being the “band photographer”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://visualorganization.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisa_obie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.oberlander.92/